ABOUT
|
"[T]he separation of poet and thinker is only apparent and to the disadvantage of both ..."
– Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg)
|
Biography
Luke Fischer is a poet, philosopher, writer, and scholar of poetry. He was born in 1978 into a European family in Sydney, Australia (his mother is French and his father’s family emigrated from Eastern Europe in 1950). In 2008 he was awarded a PhD in philosophy from the University of Sydney. From 2010-2011 he completed post-graduate study in creative writing (poetry). For a number of years Fischer lived in Germany and the U.S., where he held research fellowships (in Tübingen and Lüneburg) and taught at universities, and he has travelled extensively in Europe and the Middle East. He is currently an honorary associate of the philosophy department at the University of Sydney. His diverse publications include five authored books: the poetry collections Paths of Flight (Black Pepper, 2013), A Personal History of Vision (UWAP, 2017), and A Gamble for my Daughter (Vagabond Press, 2022), the monograph The Poet as Phenomenologist: Rilke and the New Poems (Bloomsbury, 2015) and the book of bedtime stories The Blue Forest (Lindisfarne Books, 2015). His co-edited volumes include Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus: Philosophical and Critical Perspectives, ed. Luke Fischer and Hannah Eldridge (Oxford University Press, 2019) and The Seasons: Philosophical, Literary, and Environmental Perspectives, ed. Luke Fischer and David Macauley (SUNY Press, 2021). His books have been reviewed widely in Australia and internationally in periodicals such as the Times Literary Supplement, the Wall Street Journal, Phenomenological Reviews, CHOICE, Australian Book Review, Sydney Review of Books, The Australian, Australian Poetry Review, Cordite Poetry Review, and Mascara Literary Review. He won the 2012 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize, has been shortlisted a number of times for the Newcastle Poetry Prize (2012, 2015, 2020), and his first book of poems was commended in the FAW Anne Elder Award and chosen as one of the best books of 2014 (Weekend Australian). Individual poems have appeared in leading journals and anthologies, including The Best Australian Poems, Award Winning Australian Writing (2013), and Contemporary Australian Poetry (Puncher & Wattmann, 2016), and he has been a guest speaker at the Berlin International Literature Festival, the Sydney Writers’ Festival and academic conferences in Europe, the USA, and Australia. [For an intellectual synopsis of Fischer's work see below.]
|
Post-Philosophical Thinking
The statement from Novalis (a German Romantic poet and philosopher) near the top of this page, suggestively encapsulates a core conviction that underlies much of Fischer's work as a poet, writer and scholar. It is used as an epigraph to the epilogue of his book on Rilke and phenomenological philosophy, The Poet as Phenomenologist: Rilke and the New Poems. In this book, Fischer argues that the poetic vision of Rainer Maria Rilke can address the philosophical problem of dualism in ways that exceed the possibilities of philosophy in its traditional forms. The Poet as Phenomenologist thereby demonstrates the implicit philosophical significance of poetry and suggests (building on the work of phenomenological thinkers, as well as poet-philosophers in the earlier Romantic tradition) that philosophy or thinking must become more poetic. Fischer has further developed this line of research on Rilke's poetry in the co-edited volume Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus: Philosophical and Critical Perspectives (Oxford University Press, 2019). In scholarly articles and other publications Fischer has undertaken further transdisciplinary research that seeks to synthesise poetic modes of understanding and philosophical thinking. His work in this area ventures into what could be called a post-philosophical thinking.
The Truth of Poetry
In that Fischer regards poetry as a mediation and articulation of truth, his creative work as a poet is significantly related to his scholarly research. The two pursuits complement one another. While the exploratory and intuitive process of writing poetry differs in important ways from scholarly modes of thought, poetry, in its ability to foster a genuine and distinctive kind of insight, bears an implicitly philosophical or post-philosophical significance. Moreover, Fischer's poetry creatively explores concerns that are also central to his academic research. For instance, many of the poems in Fischer's collection Paths of Flight (2013) explore modes of relating to the world that fuse the inner and the outer or lead beyond a dualistic relationship to the world (a central concern of The Poet as Phenomenologist) and non-dualistic vision is a key theme of his new poetry collection A Personal History of Vision (2017). The human relationship to the natural environment is also a theme that is central to his work as a poet and a scholar. Fischer is interested in the possibility of philosophy becoming more poetic and interdisciplinary, and in the idea that poetry can embody and mediate a kind of imaginative truth. His most recent poetry has assumed an increasingly mythopoetic direction, in which the poetic imagination and philosophical speculation are synthesised in a form of mythopoiesis. This direction bears some overlap with his research on Rilke and Hölderlin and is embodied in Fischer's new poetry collection A Gamble for my Daughter (2022).
Other Work and Interests
Fischer's book of bedtime stories The Blue Forest is a work of pure imagination (in this respect it differs from Fischer's works that aim to fuse imagination and empirical reality or poetry and philosophical concerns). The book includes seven stories set in the imagined world of 'the blue forest' and there is both a painterly and dream-related inspiration behind the work. Each story features one of seven colours, which are indicated in the titles ("The Red Bird," "The Purple Tower," etc.), and the stories are vividly imagistic and nonlinear. In this way, the stories seek to explore the inherent life of colours (in a way that has a precedent in expressionist painting) by embodying them in figures (humans, animals, etc.) and mysterious events. They also seek to resemble the rich imaginative world of dreams. They are bedtime stories (for children, and for adults with an interest in the genre) that embody a dream-like archetypal consciousness, and ferry the mind of the reader or listener from the shore of waking consciousness toward the shore of sleep.
Fischer is also an organiser of poetry events, and events involving collaboration between poets and other artists (see POEMS NB). He is interested in enlivening contemporary cultural life and in the capacity of art to foster meaningful social engagement and community. Fischer's work as an organiser practically embodies his transdisciplinary interests.
Fischer is also an organiser of poetry events, and events involving collaboration between poets and other artists (see POEMS NB). He is interested in enlivening contemporary cultural life and in the capacity of art to foster meaningful social engagement and community. Fischer's work as an organiser practically embodies his transdisciplinary interests.
Research Interests
Fischer's research interests include the following areas: Poetics and Philosophy; Phenomenology and Hermeneutics; Aesthetics; Environmental Philosophy and Ecocriticism; British and German Romanticism; German Idealism; Modernism; Translation Theory; Goethe; Hölderlin; Rilke; and Contemporary Poetry.
Selected Awards and Grants
Newcastle Poetry Prize (finalist, 2020, 2015, 2012); Red Room Poetry Fellowship (shortlisted, 2020); International Writers' Residence at Château de Lavigny, Switzerland (2016); Ron Pretty Poetry Prize (longlisted, 2015); Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize (winner, 2012); FAW Anne Elder Award (Commended for Paths of Flight, 2013); Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Humanities, Leuphana University, Lüneburg, Germany (2012); DAAD Post-Doctoral Research Grant (2009); Keystone Chapbook Prize (finalist, 2009); Faculty of Arts Teaching Fellowship (awarded for outstanding Doctoral Thesis [declined]), University of Sydney (2009); UPA Scholarship, University of Sydney (2003-2007); DAAD Graduate Research Grant, Eberhard Karls University, Tübingen, Germany (2006); First Class Honours, University of Sydney (2002).